Not because it removes ego or makes someone automatically humble, but because visualization intensifies emotion.
Why does picturing a scene make the feeling stronger?
When a person can vividly picture a scene, the body often reacts more strongly, which is why scary stories can feel physically frightening. The person is not only reading words, they are seeing a scene inside their mind. I learned I had aphantasia around four years ago.
Before that, I had no idea people could actually visualize a sheep in their mind.
What did the study on aphantasia find?
A study on aphantasia found something interesting: When people with aphantasia (around 4 percent of a population), read frightening stories, they did not show the same physical fear markers as people who could visualize, but when both groups looked at actual frightening images, their bodies reacted similarly.
That suggests the difference was not emotional coldness, but visualization. The image gives the emotion more fuel. And this may apply to ego fantasies too.
How does visualization feed ego fantasies?
When someone imagines being admired, praised, envied, powerful, famous, respected, or finally seen as right, the fantasy becomes stronger when they can see it in their mind.
The mind creates a movie, and the body starts reacting to the movie.
The ego does not only want honor, revenge, or success, it starts feeling the imagined honor, watching the imagined revenge, and picturing everyone finally realizing they were wrong.
Can aphantasia mean less shame around fantasies?
This may also help someone live with less shame around unhealthy sexual fantasies, because if they cannot visualize them, the fantasy happens as a monologue instead of becoming a vivid inner movie.
That does not mean the thought is good, healthy, or something to feed, but it can mean the body has less visual fuel to turn the thought into a stronger emotional experience.
Does aphantasia remove the ego?
So a person with aphantasia still has an ego, comparison, approval-seeking, imagined conversations, resentment, sexual thoughts that feel unhealthy, or status fantasies, but those fantasies feel less gripping in the body, and less emotionally powerful. Because what you visualize often intensifies what you feel.
What does the story of Joseph and his brothers teach us about the body and soul?
“What you visualize often intensifies what you feel. Fantasies become less gripping when they stay as monologue instead of vivid inner scenes.”
Explore the NextSelf Blog. Start with this post explaining the world of souls. And my Youtube. Content is published to this facebook first and a few days later, to the blog.
The blog lists all the difference patterns to study, understanding patterns is how one can develop 'Daas' [felt knowing].
Content does not provide medical services or professional counseling, and it is not a substitute for professional medical care.